Did I understand you correctly that you are playing on "Easy" difficulty level? There are two levels below easy - "Beginner" and "Novice" - have you tried dialing back to one of those levels? I found that dialing back to "Novice" at least gave me some time to explore some of the possibilities in the game - although even at that level the AI won't leave you alone forever.

Hey Nick,

I'm really sorry you didnt' get any help in the forums, a lot of people are currently upset with the game so we dont' have the best mindset in here.

* There is currently an issue where the AI can go into the negatives for his economy (Gold for example) and when he does so. He just keeps digging deeper. So in that aspect the AI can build up and train units without ever worring about upkeep.

* Also, there is another issue with the Warrior Temple (maybe wrong name) where it causes the AI to be able to build any unit in...1 turn.

These 2 points combined will really mess with your games. So it's basically because of this you are seeing he AI suddenly starts spiking in military power.

I have to say that, although I sympatize with your situation, i'm a little jealous. In my games the AI will build up, and then... just start building units and start sending them around with no specific idea in mind. I just kills me inside. I had all the factions Declare war on me once, and after passing 100 turns... still no armies in sight... Uh? (And this also happens to factions that I have communal borders with)

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Suggestions:

I've seen a lot of people state that the "easy" setting ends up being hard. Maybe it's because with easy difficulty the AI dosen't have all his economic boosts, so his chances of falling in the negative are stronger and thus he gets into his infinite resource status faster. (This would be "funny")

I would suggest playing games with Large Maps, Epic Pacing, and take like 3-4 oponents max. If you want less chance of a conflict pick Empire Factions as you will get a slower decrease to your relations as you are of the same allegiance.

Playing on Large Map with 3-4 oponents will MOST LIKELY give you a lot of space to start with, and no need to be worried about starting next to another faction. Take note that there are 'minor' factions. So when you see a border with a color that is not consistent with any of the chosen factions, it's one of these minor factions. Which "should" be a pushover, so feel free to conquer/attack those a little more early on.

If you can get the Leather armor tech, with the Team ability. You can make a full leather armor troop armed with a spear or staff, and it will have a lot of defense when in your cities and should provide at least deterrent for the enemy to attack.

If that dosen't help, tell me the outcome and i'll try to help you out some more.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

V

I play on normal, challenging or hard and do not run into the other sides until at least 20 and sometimes 100 turns go by.  They may build up scary armies, but by the time they do, I can usually concentrate my own and take them down.

I do not mean to besmirch your gaming skills, for I am hardly a pro, but most AI's can be defeated as long as you build up your force and by turn 200 you should have built up your sovereign and at least 3 to 6 squads of macemen, swords or archers.  One of each is great, more is better.  And if you can hire some NPC's and they have good attack skills, bring them along.  Don't forget to use magic to conjure at least the elemental, which is cheap and a useful addition.  If he gets killed in a battle, just conjure up another.  Also, early on give your sovereign the spells that allow you to add a point each of tech, arcane and food to your cities that are already specialized in those areas.  And you do specialize cities, right?  It is best to build several small ones early that capitalize on resources you may find.  One may be just for gold, another for a mine, a third for food tiles, etc.  If you find a shard, of course, jump on it.

I notice that the AI tends to spam pioneers and sends them out to explore.  They are not cheap but if they happen to find a good resource, they set up a city right then and there.  Maybe an idea for us to ponder too (though I would send them with at least an escort.)  One game I set up fast pioneers with travel boots (cheap) and a horse (if you have them) and a small attack/defense rating.  They were expensive but they could move quickly and take advantage of whatever they discovered without tieing up one of my NPC's or sovereign.  Sending a fast NPC with the party would allow you to exploit any goodie huts you find, though.

I wonder if you are spending enough time using your sovereign (with an escort) to kill off small critters and brigands to build him up?  And looking for goodie huts and small quests to build up your gilders.  Some of the early quests also can give you nice weapons - one gave me a sovereign sword worth 12 attack points and this was before turn 50.  My sovereign kicked butt with that.

It might help if you described what you tend to do in the first 200 turns to build up your kingdom.  You may be passing up opportunities to enlarge it and strengthen it.  Don't just research military, for instance, but other topics that bring useful developments to grow your cities and provide gilder, resources and food.  If your sovereign is built up enough, he can turn other NPC's into spellmakers and they can be very powerful additions to your armies.

As I said, these things work for me and you may already know them, so no offense intended, just giving suggestions.  Good luck and I hope you enjoy the game as much as I do.

It sounds like you just got a bad start, and perhaps starting a new game would help a lot.  Since you want to love playing this game, you'll probably end up loving it if you give it another go.

I like strategy games, but I'm not so good at them.  I'm playing on a medium sized map, easy level, with 4 AI factions.  In the early part of the game, I built up 5 cities and enjoyed quests and killing monsters in the wilderness until about turn 200.  I also took my time finding a spouse for my sov, and didn't get married until around turn 150--but the kids were so worth it!!

I definitely understand where you're coming from though--having the AI right on you in the beginning isn't really fun   and I hate how they build so many cities!  For my next game, I'll definitely try out the suggestions other players shared here about getting those AI factions to start farther away...

I play a lot of TBS games. I also don;t go crazy into the formulas and figuring out the absolute quickest way to do this or exploit that feature/unit.

So I would say I'm an average player at best. I too played on easy and had the same problems to start but by about my 4th or 5th game i got the hang of what i needed to do to survive the opening stretch. (that being said, I haven't run into my opponents as early as you are saying. So I guess it is possible that your experience is bad luck for a few game stretch)

One thing I would point out tho is that there are "2" difficulty settings. One in the beginning set-up for overall game difficulty, and a second for each faction as you add them as an opponent for the game. Make sure you set them all to Easy.

Also, I am playing on a medium map with 4 opponents and I found that that combo gives me just enough breathing room early on, especially since I'm just learning the ins and outs.

Hope that helps!!!

Ouch! Seriously - the AI can spend infinite money into the negatives? That would explain some odd AI development I have been seeing in my games. Has Stardock confirmed the existence of this bug and given any time frame on when it might be fixed?

Was this a troll? I can't help noticing the Op-er hasn't responded.

I hope some of this helped someone...

Hi all thank you for taking the time to reply to my post! I will take all of your advice into consideration.Yesterday i started a new game on 'Beginner' and i found it enjoyable so i will keep practising till i can move up a level.However is still seems strange to me that i'm having to practice to move up to 'Easy' from 'beginner' LOL.

I love staredock games and i hope you dont think i am mocking you, i was just having a bad day when i wrote that post.I understand there are a few issues and i KNOW for a fact that stradock will sort them out so i'm not worried.Again thanks all for your generous replies.